Saturday, July 7, 2007

When I read about people spending hundreds of dollars to hire so-called experts ("nameologists," and I am not making this up) and numerologists to help them choose a name for their child, I realize that the world really has gone mad.

Then there's the remorse of those foolish people who neglected to hire an "expert":

Karen Markovics, 36, who works for the planning department in Orange County, N.C., spent months reading baby books and scouring Web sites before settling on Nicole Josephine. But now, four years later, Mrs. Markovics says she wishes she'd chosen something less trendy -- and has even considered legally changing her daughter's name to Josephine Marie. "I'm having namer's remorse," she says.I'd hate to be the poor four-year-old whose mom informs her that she's changing her name because she doesn't like it.

And how about this gal? I wouldn't put money on the future of her marriage:

Madeline Dziallo, 36, a beautician and mother of two in LaGrange, Ill., turned to a consultant when naming both of her children, Ross, 3, and Natalie, eight months. That consultant, Maryanna Korwitts, a self-described nameologist based in Downers Grove, Ill., charges up to $350 for a package including three half-hour phone calls and a personalized manual describing the name's history, linguistic origins and personality traits. "She was an objective person for me to obsess about it with rather than driving my husband crazy," says Mrs. Dziallo.No, we wouldn't want to get the husband involved in naming his own child.

Despite my frustration at reading silly things like this, I'm thinking I might as well jump on the bandwagon here and set up an easy and profitable business for myself. I'll charge expectant parents $150 (a real bargain compared to the competition!) to email them the right name for their baby, and then, to save myself time, I'll just email them all the same name: Ditz Jr.

Calling P.T. Barnum, or whoever really said "There's a sucker born every minute." I think I might just be on to something.

4 comments:

We call my daughter "Josie" in honor of her deceased Grandmother. Since we call her by her middle name, we considered the legal name change to include Marie to honor her deceased Aunt and paternal Grandmother.

We used the less common spelling of our DD's name and I do wish we had gone with the more common one. It isn't one of those "kre8tiv" spellings but more along the lines of Elisabeth rather than Elizabeth. We had wanted to honor DH's heritage by using that culture's traditional spelling of the name but now I regret it. I have the hardest time getting other people to spell the name correctly, often even after I've specifically told them :-(

CW, doesn't it seem like some people just won't give up their opinion about how a name should be spelled? I say that as someone who is forever telling people, "It's not Franks, it's Frank. There's no S at the end!"

Homeschoolers for over 20 years.....

and we're still at it with our two youngest, dd17 and dsds15. I'm the author of several books, including the curriculum Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers. I call my Web site and newsletter "The Imperfect Homeschooler" because I've learned that we don't have to be perfect moms and teachers to homeschool our children successfully; God uses us despite our imperfections.